Anybody read a good book lately?

[PhillyPhreak54]

I'm going to buy David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets today....heard it was a pretty good read.

[Rome]

They have libraries in Texas, right?

[PhillyPhreak54]

 

I think so. But B&N is closer. And I like to buy the books.

[Diomedes]

I'm going to buy David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets today....heard it was a pretty good read.

I saw this book on a shelf in the library of one of the guys I work for yesterday, and briefly considered taking it home, but decided I should finish the book I'm in right now first.

Having just finished season 4 of the Wire, I need a fix of real life Baltimore without actually going out and getting shot myself.

[General_Failure]

They have libraries in Texas, right?

Book depositories, at least.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I'm going to buy David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets today....heard it was a pretty good read.

I saw this book on a shelf in the library of one of the guys I work for yesterday, and briefly considered taking it home, but decided I should finish the book I'm in right now first.

Having just finished season 4 of the Wire, I need a fix of real life Baltimore without actually going out and getting shot myself.

I'm 100 pages in and hooked.

[Diomedes]

go on, tease

[rjs246]

I'm reading The Year of Living Biblically. Pretty interesting and enjoyable so far.

[Diomedes]

Did he get to the point of stoning his neighbor for worshipping false idols?

yay mumbo jumbo

[PhillyPhreak54]

go on, tease

The way he writes has drawn me in...giving little bits and pieces of crimes while shaping up the guys in the unit he's writing about has been the best part. He'll give a back story and let it develop a bit, then he'll switch to another guy and so on until you're caught up in present time following the case-leads.

It's about 700 pages long so I hope it continues to be this good throughout.

[Seabiscuit36]

I'm honestly not much of book person, but i do enjoy books dealing with gangs and crime. 

I just saw TJ English talking about his new book "Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution" , its about the Mob, and how the italian mob owned Cuba pre Castro, definitely will be picking this one up.  I really enjoyed his "Paddywhacked" about the irish mob. 

Other good books i've read dealing with the underworld stuff: 

Red Mafiya-Robert I. Friedman

Black Brothers Inc.

[rjs246]

I have finished The Year of Living Biblically (AJ Jacobs) and The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon) over the past two weeks.

The Year of Living Biblically was surprisingly good. As someone who is not at all religious, I worry about how best to frighten my as-yet-unborn children into behaving themselves without ending up in prison. Religion is a lot of things to a lot of people, but its greatest value to me is that at every religion's core lay a lot of sound moral guidelines. Respecting others, living healthy, etc. In the absence of the threat of fire and brimstone it becomes easy to say, 'well there are no real rules, why not do whatever the hell I want and act like a self-obsessed shteinhead all the time?' Anyway, the author struggles with this problem as he is in the process of raising his first son and wants him to have some moral fabric to cling to. It's a lot more interesting to read from that angle than to obsess over the minutiae of the rules that he attempts to follow (though that part of the book is pretty entertaining, just not very insightful).


The Crying of Lot 49. This is the second Pynchon book that I've read and will probably be the last. He never comes out and says it, but the point of his books seem to be to mock the human condition. Maybe 'mock' isn't the right word, I don't know.

Both Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49 seem to revel in the idea of humans doing silly, dangerous, embarrassing, debasing or socially unaccepted things in an attempt to find some meaning to their lives. This COULD be a noble undertaking... but it isn't with Pynchon. The problem is that every single one of Pynchon's characters ultimately fails to do anything other than contribute to the random and chaotic cycle of life. No one ever advances. No one ever learns more about themselves or their situations (outside of the occasional realization that they are searching aimlessly for meaning).

He is an interesting writer, and his style is very different than the Hemingway/McCarthy/every-male-American-author-of-the-past-70-years, and I DID enjoy reading this book, but his stories only serve to inform the reader that life is pointless. And since I already suspected this, I don't think I'll be reading anything else by him. No need to drive that nail home any further.

To lighten things up I am now reading I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson.
And still trying to make myself finish The Hamlet, by Faulkner.

[Reidme]

I am all over the place on some reading of late ..... and forgive me if these have been covered.

Last Lecture - touching and insightful, especially knowing the outcome. But this guy was a bit out there, as most professors are ... not that theres anything wrong with that. 


Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama, good read in terms of actually hearing what Obama is about. Sound ideas, not alot of details. A little boring at times, and boy is he p*whipped.

Lone Survivor - True story of Seal Team 10, inserted into Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan Mountain. They are discovered by three goat herders and are faced with the decision to kill them or let them go. Pretty repetitive description of basic training for seals, but man it gets gripping. Almost finished currently. Update - compelling book. Would recommend.

Engulfed in Flames - Sedaras? Next on the list .... Update - Read one chapter (actually listened to, on audio book while driving) smirked once, very affectionate descriptions of his life with his soulmate Hugh, I'm out. Anyone interested in an audiobook? The guy had a smoking skeleton on the cover, I was expecting Dennis Leary.

[rjs246]

Ha. David Searas is very funny and very very gay. Somebody probably should have warned you of that if it was gonna turn you off.

[rjs246]

Finished I Am Legend. I'm a sucker for apocaylptic survival stories and this was a good one. Very short at 170 pages and sort of heavy handed in its message, but completely enjoyable. Would recommend.